There's been a lot happening in men's tennis recently, both on and off the court, and there's only so much we can write or talk about in full here are On The Line HQ.

I'm here to shoot short shots of news at you to keep you in the loop, news that we may have missed over the last few weeks of podcasting and blogging.

There's some slightly analytical stuff here including Medvedev's dip and Tiafoe's spike and there's some off-court stuff including Federer's future plans and Djokovic's chances of making Turin.

Easy digestible content to bring you up to speed. Enjoy!

Does Novak Make Turin?

First on the agenda... How does Novak Djokovic make the ATP Finals in Turin?

Djokovic won Wimbledon earlier this year but didn't accrue the points from the tournament. Slam winners will qualify for the ATP Finals so long as they finish the year in the top-20.

At the moment, Djokovic is 15th in the singles race to Turin.

The chances of him not making it? With the 250 tournament in Tel Aviv he's currently attending, a 500 in Astana and the Paris Masters coming up, there are plenty of opportunities for him to make up the points.

Despite everyone else ranked #16 to #30 attending an additional 500 before the qualification cut-off date and the points gap of 300 between #15 and #20 sounding fairly small, it probably just boils down to whether or not Djokovic competes close to his normal level. The wrist injury sustained at the Laver Cup doesn't seem to be troubling him and quite frankly he should still be considered the best hard-courter in the world right now.

Short answer: Something would probably need to sideline Djokovic for the whole of October for him not to make the finals. Even then, the chances of five separate players making a leap of more than 300 points to overtake Djokovic with four events left on the calendar? Unlikely!

Medvedev Out Of Sorts

We need to talk about Daniil.

Though the Russian has still found some decent wins during this rough patch, some of his losses have left me worried. Not so much the players he's losing to but the nature of the losses...

Medvedev has lost a bit of an edge under pressure.

Let's talk about double-faults first.

• Vs Stan Wawrinka last week in Metz. Double-faults led to frustration led to the crowd booing led to Medvedev doing monkey impressions in response (this goes hand in hand with his relationship with the French1!).

• Vs Stefanos Tsitsipas in Cincinnati. Down 2-3, some literal fireworks went off for a while and Medvedev double-faulted four times in the same game. This was the only break of the third set.

• Vs Gael Monfils in Indian Wells. Down 1-5, Medvedev double-faulted three times in the same game to hand Monfils the match (from an admittedly difficult position).

• Vs Grigor Dimitrov in Indian Wells (last October). Medvedev only double-faulted six times but the number of first serves he missed was unforgiveable leading Dimitrov to win eight games on the bounce.

These are all great players, no doubt, however Medvedev's empire is built around taking down players of this calibre week-in-week-out on hard-courts. He seems to be losing concentration far more easily than he used to and it's making all the difference in big moments in these matches.

Just look at his sharp decline under pressure.

• Medvedev's break point conversion rate 2021: 47.0%, top-50 leader.

• Medvedev's break point conversion rate 2022: 41.3%, 17th in the top-50.

• Medvedev's break point saved rate 2021: 69.2%, 7th in the top-50.

• Medvedev's break point saved rate 2022: 61.3%, 30th in the top-50.

It's a slight worry at the moment. Remember how he bounced back from a dip in form in 2020 to dominate the Paris Masters, the World Tour Finals and reach the final of the Australian Open though?

Still, the longer it goes on... Best of luck Daniil!

Tiafoe Taking Off

When one player's form dips, another's rises.

It's no secret Frances Tiafoe has been playing great tennis recently. There's one record though that I just had to give the spotlight too.

Twelve tiebreaks in a row! An insane statistic from Frances who was able to save three set points in his tiebreak against Schwartzman in New York and four match points in his tiebreak against Tsitsipas at the Laver Cup.

I'll deliver more information on this if Tiafoe's crazy record in this department extends...

Federer's Future

Okay very quickly cause this is sort of non-news...

But for those worrying whether or not Federer was going to vanish - don't worry! He's not going to be away forever.

"I just wanted to let the fans know I won't be a ghost, you know. It's funny, you know, I talked about Bjorn Borg just before... But I don't think I'll be that guy, you know, and I feel tennis has given me too much... I love seeing people again, and that's kind of what I wanted to let the fans know that you'll see me again. Not just never again. Now what it could be, in what capacity, I don't know."

The 41-year-old hasn't ruled out commentary despite saying he'd never do it.

"Funnily enough, I always thought I'll never go on the journalist side or that commentary would never be a thing for me. But the subject of commenting suddenly came to mind six months ago. Who knows? Maybe specifically commenting on some games in Wimbledon, for example. I just wanted to let the fans know I won't be a ghost."

We don't know what he'll be doing but Federer will be back.

Hyeon Chung Returns

Do you remember Hyeon Chung?

Back when Medvedev, Zverev and Tsitsipas were all making waves at 20 years old or so, Hyeon Chung was regularly mentioned in the same breath.

Having won the Next Gen Finals in 20172, the South Korean killed in Australia taking out Medvedev, Zverev and Djokovic consecutively in reaching the semifinals before making back-to-back quarterfinals at the Sunshine Double, catapulting his ranking to #19 in the world.

Then injury struck. It started with horrific foot blisters but became far more debilitating as back injury forced him to into rehabiliation for two years...

Until now! Hyeon Chung is back on the court tentatively testing the waters with a little doubles in Seoul (he won his first match back).

To see Chung playing at the top again would be great. It was no coincidence he defeated (an albeit injured) Djokovic in Australia, his movement and backhand very similar to the Serb's.

Fingers crossed for his continued recovery.